


Shelby’s finally free

by fightthepigeons



Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: F/F, High School, Weight Gain, chubby shelby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:14:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29333619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightthepigeons/pseuds/fightthepigeons
Summary: Shelby starts to gain weight after her pageant season ends and Toni is there for it
Relationships: Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe
Comments: 11
Kudos: 132





	1. Chapter 1

Shelby was starving. She hadn’t been allowed to eat anything today. Her dad said it would make her look better in her dresses and she could use every edge she could get to win today’s pageant. She did win, but she wasn’t really sure if it was because she skipped breakfast and lunch. It was about 5 o’clock and she was hoping her dad would take her and her family out to dinner to celebrate her win. Shelby walked out of the changing room and was immediately congratulated by her family. There were lots of good jobs and hugs.

“Well sweetie, where do you want to go for your celebratory dinner?” Dave Goodkind, Shelby’s dad, asked.

“I was thinking Mexican, so Azul’s?” Shelby responded.

“Sounds good”

They all walked to the car and drove off. Once they got a table and the chips were served, Shelby immediately started eating. She ate most of the first basket before the waitress had even arrived to take their drink orders. When the waitress got to her, she ordered Coke. Of course her dad immediately cut in and said, “Actually she’ll have a diet Coke.”

Shelby blushed in shame and opened her mouth to say no, she actually just wanted a regular Coke, but thought better of it and dejectedly said, “Uh, yeah that’s what I meant.”

That was also the moment she realized that she knew the waitress. It was Toni Shifaloe from her Algebra class last year, one of the few out lesbians in their grade. Of course she worked here and of course her dad had to embarrass her like that. Sometimes she couldn’t stand how overbearing he was. This pageant was the last one for a few months, until the winter season started, it wouldn’t hurt her to have one Coke. 

The sound of Toni saying, “Uh, okay… Anything else I can get you?” snapped Shelby out of her trance. 

Her father responded with, “No we’re good for now.”

Shelby kept snacking on the chips and salsa until they were gone. Toni came and replaced them relatively quickly, so Shelby was able to continue snacking. Once Toni came back with their drinks, the second basket of chips was halfway empty. Shelby took a sip of her diet Coke and it tasted surprisingly better than usual. 

“Can I take your orders?”   
“I’ll have the beef tacos,” Shelby said once it was her turn. This time her dad didn’t have anything to say about her choice, which was a welcome change. The chip basket was refilled for a second time and it seemed her dad couldn’t hold his opinions in anymore.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough honey? You should save some room for your dinner.”

Shelby’s face flushed in anger and embarrassment once again. Of course her dad had to criticize her eating habits, even after she hadn’t eaten anything all day. For once, she didn’t have to say anything because her mom actually jumped to her defense.

“Oh, let her enjoy her dinner. This was the last pageant of the season, she deserves to cheat on her diet sometimes and now is probably the best time for her to do it.”

Surprisingly, her mom’s words actually had an effect on her dad and he said, “You’re right. Shelby deserves a nice meal after all of her hard work these past few months.”   
He pushed the chip basket toward her and gestured for her to take more. She did take more because refusing would definitely be a bad idea. She had learned that when her dad changed his mind, it could be dangerous to not appreciate it enough. 

She finished the third basket of chips as their food arrived. At this point, she wasn’t feeling super hungry anymore, but her tacos looked really good. Shelby quickly decided that not eating them would be a shame. Plus, overeating once, especially after fasting all day, wouldn’t ruin her figure. She ate her first two tacos with gusto. This made her little brother giggle as she got some rice stuck in her teeth. He pointed it out and she excused herself to the bathroom. 

Once she got there, she locked the door and took her fake teeth out. It was just her two incisors, but whenever she forced herself to look at her reflection without them, she felt embarrassed and ugly. It wasn’t fair. Other girls were pretty for real, but she was just a fake. Her hair wasn’t naturally straight, she didn’t have all of her teeth, and without makeup, her complexion was spotty at best. Before she could get too deep into her self-loathing, she heard the door handle rattle. 

She quickly put her dentures back in and opened the door. It was Toni. The two girls stood there awkwardly until Toni spoke, “Sorry, I didn’t think anyone was in there. I didn’t mean to rush you.”

“Don’t worry. I was just leaving.”   
They stood there for another few seconds before Toni spoke up again, “Oh by the way, I gave you real Coke not that diet shit.”

That explained why it tasted so much better than usual and that moment of thoughtfulness made Shelby smile.

“Thanks, I really didn’t want that diet stuff.”

Toni just smiled at her, and Shelby realized she should probably go back to her table. She waved goodbye and walked back. She sat down and picked her third taco up. As she did, she caught her dad’s eye. There was an obvious disapproving look in his eyes, but Shelby really wanted to eat her taco, so she did. She finished it and reached for her fourth. Just as she was lifting it up to take a bite, her dad said, “Shouldn’t you save that one for leftovers. It would make a good lunch for tomorrow.”

“Uh I’m still kinda hungry, so I was gonna eat it now…” Shelby said in a quiet voice, trailing off at the end, “but I guess I could save it for tomorrow.”

Her dad just smiled and said, “If you’re still hungry you might as well finish it.”

It was said in a tone that told Shelby her dad really thought she should save it for tomorrow, but she ignored that and ate her fourth taco. It was as good as the first three and left her feeling pleasantly full with a grin on her face. 

They paid their bill and left the restaurant. As soon as Shelby got home, she showered, changed into pajamas and curled up on her bed to watch TV. At about midnight, she was starting to feel hungry again, so she snuck downstairs to get a snack. She ate a bunch of crackers with Kraft cheese and some dry Fruit Loops. Once she was done eating, she went up to bed and quickly fell asleep. 

For the next week, she continued to eat a little more than usual at each meal and sneak down at night to have a snack. She didn’t really notice this new behavior, but she knew she felt less stressed about her diet now that she had a several month break from pageants. This led to a looser diet and less exercise. It also led to Shelby gaining a small amount of weight. It was only 3 pounds, but at her weekly weigh in, it freaked her out a bit. She knew 127 pounds wasn’t very much, especially at her height, but it sure felt like a lot more than 124. Plus her first day of school was on Wednesday and she didn’t want to return looking any fatter than when she left. This led to an increase in exercise and a decrease in eating which led to her dropping 2 of those pounds before she went back to school. 

Unluckily for her, her first class of the day was Geometry. She had always struggled with math, barely passing Algebra with a D- last year. She did great in all of her other classes (except when science included math), but for some reason she never got math. Plus there was nothing more embarrassing than being the only junior in a class meant for freshmen and sophomores. At least she thought she would be the only junior in first period Geometry until Toni walked in. She didn’t look thrilled to be in the class much like Shelby. Shelby watched Toni walk to a seat in the back and put some earbuds in. Shelby was sitting in the middle front like she usually did. She wanted the teacher to know that she cared about the class, but really didn't want to be asked any questions as she usually didn’t know the answer. 

The teacher then walked in and started talking. He made everyone get up so he could assign them seats. Shelby ended up sitting besides Toni in the back of the room. They greeted each other and then sat in silence for the rest of class, both taking notes and looking only slightly lost. 

Luckily for Shelby, she had friends in the rest of her classes, plus lunch. What she was really excited about was the fact that she didn’t see her boyfriend Andrew at all that day except when she saw him walking towards his car. She really didn’t want to think about why she was so happy to not have to see Andrew, so she asked her friend Becca to get McDonalds with her. She ended up with a six piece McNugget and a large fry. Becca got the same, but couldn’t finish her fries and gave the rest to Shelby. 

Talking with Becca was always fun and Shelby was sad when she had to go home. That meant Shelby had to go home and she really didn’t feel like it. She still went home because she would get in trouble if she missed dinner, and now that she was thinking about it, all those fries probably weren’t the best idea. There was nothing she could do about it now. 

She arrived home right as her mom was finishing up dinner. She immediately started setting the table. Her father served everyone and for once gave her a fairly large portion. It went unnoticed by him, but it made Shelby dread trying to finish it. The one time her dad actually gives her a full meal is the one time she wants it least. She still manages to finish it and dodges dessert by saying that she wants to watch her figure a bit and promising she’ll have some later.

Later turns out to be 9:37 at night when she is slogging through her Geometry homework. She’d been working on it for an hour and a half and she only understood about half of it. It was looking like a bad sign for what the rest of the year was going to be like. It also made her crave something sweet to take her mind off of it. She went downstairs and cut herself a large piece of the chocolate cake her mom baked. It was her absolute favorite. She quickly finished the piece and went up to her room to continue trying to do Geometry. It took her about 30 more minutes, but she finally finished and was able to go to bed. 

The next day in math class, they turned in their homework and took a mini quiz as a warmup and “check for understanding.” It was brutal for Shelby. She was only able to finish three of the five questions in the 10 minutes allotted at the beginning of class. As the teacher walked around collecting everyone’s papers, Shelby looked over at Toni’s paper and saw that she had actually managed to finish all five problems, even if, from all the eraser marks and crossed off answers, it hadn’t been easy for her. That made Shelby feel even worse. She had hoped she wouldn’t be the only one who had no clue what was going on, but if the only other junior had figured it out, it meant she would likely be the worst one.

The rest of class was equally as hard because she again could not understand what was happening in the lesson. It was even worse than Algebra last year. She had at least felt like she almost knew how to do most things, but already two days in, Geometry was proving to be very confusing. 

As soon as she got home that day, she went to find her mom to rant. 

“Mom, you won’t believe what happened in math today.”

Her mom looked up with a small smile and said, “What happened?”

“My math teacher gave a pop quiz this morning, and I was only able to finish three of the five questions.”

“That sounds terrible sweetie. Do you think you’ll want a tutor?”

Shelby blushed and said, “No, I’ll be fine. It wasn’t too hard.”

Her mom gave her a look saying I don’t believe you, but she let the issue drop. It had only been two days of school. Shelby grabbed herself a snack and went to start any homework that wasn’t Geometry. She had learned that if she didn’t save her math homework for last, she wouldn’t end up doing anything else after it. Luckily for her, she learned that if she did it last and made sure to have a snack in the middle of it, she would be able to finish all of her work. It was the system that had gotten her through her first two years of high school, even if it had always caused her to gain about 10 pounds each year. 

Sadly for her, Geometry was turning out to be even harder than the last few years of math, and after only one month of school, her jean shorts were starting to feel a bit snug. The day she noticed her weight gain was a Saturday. It was when she was getting ready to go bowling with Becca. She turned sideways in the mirror and saw that her belly was sticking over the edge of her shorts a bit. It was also when she realized that she had failed to weigh herself over the last month. She immediately jumped onto the scale and watched as the number flashed a bright 136. She had gained a little over ten pounds in only one month. The realization of course made her panic. She still went bowling with Becca, but she refused to eat anything while she was there. 

“Are you sure you don’t want any, you love the nachos here?” Becca asked Shelby with a concerned voice, “he isn’t insulting your weight gain right?”

Shelby shook her head, “No, for once he isn’t, but he probably should be, I’ve gained ten pounds in the last month.”

Becca looked her up and down and said, “Really? I couldn’t tell at all.”

“I know, I didn’t notice until this morning.”

“You should still eat though, people’s weights fluctuate all the time and a little weight gain is not a good reason to stop eating.”

Shelby rolled her eyes fondly and picked up a nacho and ate it. She didn’t want to worry Becca, plus she knew she was right, she could drop this weight easily if she needed to. It really wasn’t that big of a deal. With that in mind, Shelby continued her eating habits and shockingly continued to gain weight. 

The next time she noticed her weight gain was the morning of her first big math test. She was buttoning a pair of jean shorts she hadn’t worn in a while, and it was much harder to do than she thought it should be. When she looked down, she realized why. It was because her belly had gotten noticeably bigger. She looked in her mirror and saw that the shorts were giving her a muffin top and tiny pinchable love handles. She pinched them to make sure they were real and they certainly were. It was embarrassing and she quickly changed into something less form fitting. She was sure she was going to stress about it all day, but once she got to math class, that all changed.

It changed because she had absolutely no idea what was going on in the math test. The problems made no sense and even though she felt like she had an okay grip on the homework, it did not translate to being able to do the test. The only ones she knew how to do were the ones where it asked her to draw a shape. She did those ones first and was very glad she did because the bell rang when she still had about ⅕ of the test left. She turned it in knowing she failed. It would drop her grade far. She had gotten lucky and the quizzes each morning didn’t actually go in the gradebook and the homework was just graded for completion. 

That night she went home having completely forgotten about her clothing mishap. 

The next day, they got their tests back and Shelby’s had a 37/100 written on the top and a note saying to speak to the teacher after class. That put butterflies in her stomach, but she forced them down and looked through her test. She had gotten partial credit for the questions she’d missed and had gotten the two drawing questions right, so that was cool. Sadly those points were not enough to make up for all the mistakes she’d made. She was lost in thought when she heard a, “What’d you get?”

Shelby looked up and saw that Toni had spoken. They didn’t do that much, but she seemed nice. Sadly, Shelby really didn’t want to answer her question, but didn’t want to seem rude. She decided to bite the bullet and say, “37, what about you?”

Toni looked a little surprised at that but answered with, “64” and, “I really didn’t think anyone would do worse than me, but damn girl that sucks.”

Shelby flushed and said, “I suck at math. It’s literally the worst.”

“I can’t agree more.”

The class then started up and the teacher started the lesson. It ended too quickly with Shelby once again retaining nothing. She started packing up slowly, wanting the rest of the kids to leave before she had to have a conversation with the teacher. Toni was doing the same. She finished packing up and noticed that the teacher had approached their desks. 

“Hello girls.”

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

“So I’ve noticed that you two seem to be struggling and I would like to recommend tutoring. There is free tutoring through the school and I think it would benefit you two. If you do decide to do it, I would consider giving you guys extra credit to help make some points back up.”

Toni asked, “Do we get to choose who tutors us?”

“You can request someone, but you might not get them.”

That seemed to be good enough for Toni as she said, “Thanks, I’ll probably do that. Is there a form to fill out?”   
He handed them both forms and Toni left for her next class. He then looked at Shelby and said, “I really think you should do this Shelby. I don’t see you passing this class if you don’t change something, and I think tutoring will be a good place to start.”

Shelby nodded and said, “Thanks, I’ll at least try it out.”

Later that day, she filled out the form and submitted it to the office. Later that night, she drowned her sorrows in the chocolate cake her mom made. It was also the moment her mom noticed that she had gained some weight. She wasn’t going to say anything considering Shelby looked pretty upset, but when she reached to serve herself another slice of cake, her mom decided not to hold her tongue, “Are you sure you should be having another one?”

Shelby looked with a confused look, “What? Why?”

“Well honey, you’ve been eating quite a bit lately and you’re starting to look a little chunky. It might be smart to cut back.”

Shelby flushed and mumbled, “No I’m not,” as she started eating her second piece of cake. 

Shelby tried to ignore her mom’s comment, but the feeling of her waistband biting into her stomach couldn’t be ignored. It was way too tight, especially considering how full her belly was. 

The next week consisted of little comments from her mom and Shelby’s insistent denials. It was pissing Shelby off and making her self conscious at the same time. For this reason, she asked Becca if she could sleepover at her house Saturday night. Becca of course said yes, so Shelby packed her bag and went over there. 

Becca’s parents were much less strict which was why they liked to have the sleepovers there. Plus her parents provided snacks. Tonight, there were gummy worms, M&Ms, Doritos, and microwave popcorn. As soon as she got there, Shelby opened a package of gummy worms and started eating them as she ranted to Becca about Geometry and her mom. 

“I’m actually gonna fail that class. It’s so frickin hard.”

Becca smiled and said, “I know what you mean, I barely got an A last year.”

Shelby glared and said, “Wow, that’s horrible. I got a 37% on the first test.”   
Becca’s jaw dropped open, “I forgot you were that bad at math,” she then continued in a more concerned voice, “are you actually gonna be able to pass this year.”

Shelby sighed and said, “I don’t know… hopefully. I signed up for tutoring and I’m supposed to hear who is gonna help me on Monday.”

Their conversation was interrupted by Becca’s mom calling them down for dinner. Becca’s mom had made lasagna and garlic bread, one of Shebly’s favorites, but her mom never made it because she needed to stay on a diet. Luckily, Becca’s mom didn’t care about that at all. The girls were allowed to serve themselves and Shelby made sure to grab a big piece, plus two slices of garlic bread. She finished it while making small talk with Becca’s parents. 

“We have ice cream for dessert if you girls want?” Becca’s dad said.   
Shelby nodded an enthusiastic yes and Becca went and got it from the freezer. She gave herself and Shelby three scoops and they took it up to her room. Shelby quickly finished hers and what was left of Becca’s after she declared she was too full to eat any more. After all that food, Shelby’s belly was very bloated and her jean shorts were digging in horribly. She kept shifting around trying to get comfortable, but nothing seemed to work. Becca noticed this and asked, “Are you good?”

“It’s nothing, my pants just feel a little tight?”

Becca laughed and said, “No duh. You just ate your body weight in lasagna and ice cream. Let’s change into pajamas, they’ll be more comfortable.”

They always changed in front of each other, which is why Becca actually saw how soft Shelby was getting. Once she had taken off her shirt, Becca had a good view of Shelby’s stomach and love handles. They were much bigger than she was expecting. She had noticed Shelby had gained weight, it was almost impossible not to, but she didn’t know it was this much. Her stomach pooched a good few inches over the waist of her straining shorts, and her love handles were very prominent, hanging over the sides and looking very pinchable, which was exactly why Becca pinched them.

“When did these get here?”   
Shelby yelped loudly and blushed crimson saying, “It’s nothing, these shorts are just too small. If I take them off, they go away.”

Shelby did just that proving herself mostly right. Sadly for her, her underwear was also too small and she wasn’t going to get naked for Becca, so the little love handles would have to remain. It did make them and her stomach look smaller though, but no less soft. It was the first time Becca could recall Shelby looking anything less than supermodel skinny. It was actually a good look for her. It highlighted her hourglass figure and made her look a little less gaunt. 

Becca laughed and said, “You’re right, it was just your shorts.”   
Shelby turned towards Becca’s mirror and checked herself out. She looked much fuller. Her thigh gap was gone and her stomach was sticking out much farther than it ever had before, but she didn’t look bad. Just a little thicker. 

She didn’t say that though, what she said instead was “God I need to lose weight. My mom was right, I have been eating too much cake.”

Becca shook her head and said, “I don’t know Shelby, I think you might look better like this.”

That made Shelby light up, “Wait really? Cause I was actually thinking the same thing, but I didn’t wanna sound all weird about it.”

Becca smiled. Shelby wasn’t usually very confident in her body so this was a welcome change. Becca was obviously going to back her friend up, “Oh yeah definitely. You look great. The extra weight really suits you.”

Shelby smiled and picked up the bag of chips, “No need to slow down then.”

Becca laughed at her and nodded her agreement. They finished putting their pajamas on and settled in to watch some movies. Shelby continued to snack until she eventually fell asleep. 

The next morning she was given a large breakfast of pancakes before she had to be home for church. Once she got home she quickly showered and shimmied into one of her dresses. It was much tighter than usual and she struggled for a few minutes before she was able to get it zipped. She hurried downstairs and her parents drove the whole family to church. 

On Monday, she found out that her friend Amanda would be tutoring her in Geometry. Amanda was already taking AP Calculus and Shelby really didn’t want to show her how bad she was at math. She knew it would be terribly embarrassing, but they had their first session after school today, so there wasn’t much she could do. 

After school, she went to find Amanda in the library. It didn’t take long. She noticed that Amanda had a bag of mini Kit Kats and the Geometry textbook sitting on the table. She seemed to be reading the section they covered today, so at least she was taking this tutoring thing seriously because Shelby had not been able to understand anything at all during this unit. She needed all the help she could get. Failing math was not on her agenda this year. 

Shelby sat down across from Amanda and said, “Hi.”

Amanda said “Hi” back and then asked, “What do you need help with?”   
“Uh… all of it I think, except for the drawing shapes part.”

Amanda laughed at that and slid her a sheet of paper, “Can you solve these? It’d be nice to see what you have a grip on and what you don’t.”

Shelby nodded and got to work. About half an hour later, she finished all the questions to her best ability and slid it back to Amanda. She quickly graded it. She then looked up and said, “Well you weren’t lying about only knowing how to draw the shapes.”

She had a slightly surprised look on her face. Shelby blushed and said, “I know, I know. I’m surprisingly bad at math.”

It was Amanda’s turn to blush, “That’s not what I meant, but yeah… like I knew you were a year behind obviously, but I didn’t know you were like this bad at it.”

“Yeah, well, hopefully you’ll be able to help me.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Amanda then started trying to explain the basics of Geometry to Shelby. It was going better than in class, but by no means super well. What was nice was whenever Shelby got a question right, she got a mini Kit Kat. So the free food and trying not to embarrass herself too badly in front of her friend, made Shebly do better than usual in Geometry. They ended the session with Amanda helping Shelby with her homework.

It was then time to go home for dinner.

“How was your first day of tutoring?” Shelby’s mom asked.

“It went well. I feel like I kind of understand what we’re doing right now.”

Shelby’s dad then cut in with, “I didn’t know you needed tutoring.”   
Shelby blushed and said, “Uh yeah, I needed some help in Geometry and there’s a tutoring system at the school. The teacher thought I could use the extra help so he helped get me signed up.”

Dave Goodkind seemed a little miffed about it but held his tongue. 

This new system held up for a couple weeks. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Amanda and Shelby would meet up and do Shelby’s homework for that day, plus teach her whatever she didn’t understand. It was working very well. Shelby was starting to get 2 or 3 questions right on the daily pop quizzes and was almost always able to finish them. One day the teacher called on her and she even had the right answer, which was something that had never happened before in math. 

The only problem with this new system was that she was eating much more candy than she used to, so she was putting on weight even faster than before. It became a real issue when Shelby tried to button a pair of jeans and they wouldn’t close. She tried sucking in her stomach and even lying down on her bed, but no matter what she did, they wouldn’t close. This meant she was forced to go to school in sweatpants for the first time in a while. Luckily no one noticed, but that didn’t stop the feelings of shame. It was a Thursday so she didn’t have to worry about tutoring and could go to the mall to buy some new pants. She texted Becca and she agreed to come with. 

At the mall, she grabbed several pairs of jeans, some in her old size, some one size up, and a few two sizes up. She wasn’t sure what she’d need, but she honestly hoped that maybe she’d be able to squeeze into her old size, even if that didn’t seem plausible. Her and Becca both went into the changing room and Shelby immediately took her sweatpants up, lifted her shirt up and asked Becca, “Am I getting fat?”

Becca was caught off guard. She recovered quickly and said, “No, not at all,” without even looking at Shelby.   
Shelby frowned and said, “You didn’t even look.”   
Becca rolled her eyes but looked at Shelby. What she saw surprised her. Shelby was getting fat. She wasn’t quite fat yet, but she was definitely on her way there. Her stomach pooched over her underwear, in the beginning of a potbelly, and her boobs were bulging out of her bra. Her underwear was giving her actual love handles, not the super tiny ones from a few weeks ago and her legs looked much thicker, touching for a couple more inches than last time. She even had the beginnings of a double chin when she looked down. Becca wasn’t going to say that though. Shelby had always been body conscious and Becca didn’t want to hurt her. 

“Shelby, you aren’t fat.”

Shelby smiled and said, “Okay good. I was just getting kind of worried. I couldn’t button my jeans this morning and it kind of freaked me out.”

That simultaneously surprised Becca and made perfect sense. Shelby then started putting jeans on. She started with a pair in her old size, but she couldn’t even pull them all the way over her butt. She quickly discarded them and moved on to the next size up. They fit but not well. They gave her love handles and her stomach poured over the front. Becca convinced her to try on the next size up. They fit much better. In fact it was almost a perfect fit. Shelby bought two pairs in that size and one in one size lower for when she lost weight. 

As they were leaving the store, Shelby’s stomach growled. That led to Becca saying they should get something to eat and Shelby hastily agreeing. She got two slices of pizza while Becca only got one. They quickly finished and Shelby dropped Becca off at her house. She then went home and had another full dinner. She decided to weigh herself to see how much she would have to drop to be pageant ready. She hopped on the scale and the number read 159. She was shocked and vowed to go on a diet starting tomorrow. 

Her eating habits never changed though, so she continued to put on weight. About a month and a half before the winter pageant season was about to start, her dad noticed that she had put on weight. This was because as she was reaching toward the top shelf to get plates down for dinner, her shirt rode up showcasing her doughy belly slightly hanging over the edge of her larger jeans. Her dad freaked out and demanded she go weigh herself immediately. He followed her to her bathroom and stood there as she got on the scale. It read 176. His face turned red and he shouted, “You’re going to have to lose 50 pounds in the next month to be pageant ready in the slightest. What in the name of God have you been eating?”

That was when Shelby realized the true scale of her weight gain. It had seemed so gradual to her, which made it seem like less weight than it truly was. She started crying and apologizing. Her dad wasn’t taking any of it and locked her in her room for the rest of the night, making sure not to give her dinner. 

After he left, she went and stood in front of the mirror and took her shirt off. For the first time she noticed how the once baggy shirt was actually quite tight on her. She then started to notice other things about her body. Like how her stomach was starting to bulge over the top of her new jeans. She turned sideways and saw just how far her stomach stuck out. It actually looked fat from that angle so she quickly faced front again. Her love handles were starting to hang out of these jeans as well and her boobs were almost indecently hanging out of her bra. There was plenty of sideboob and underboob. She wasn’t quite sure how she hadn’t noticed how uncomfortable all her clothes were until this very moment. She quickly pulled her jeans down and saw that her underwear was also unbearably tight, making her look much fatter than she actually was. She hesitantly reached out and jiggled her belly. It sent ripples across her belly, boobs, and even thighs, which were also looking much thicker. She was even starting to get some arm fat. It jiggled everything for far too long for comfort. 

Her main issue wasn’t even the fact that she had gotten chubby without noticing, but it was the fact that she didn’t mind it, or even think she looked bad. She was definitely chunky or chubby at this point, not just thick like Becca would say, but she still thought she looked hot. She had never thought that chubby women were that pretty, preferring them to be muscled and strong, but for some weird reason, she liked how it looked on her, which was what freaked her out the most. She didn’t actually want to lose the weight. She didn’t want to continue to do pageants, they always made her feel insecure and ugly. This was honestly the prettiest she had ever felt. 

She fell asleep with thoughts like that. The next day, her father told her that she was going to have to wear tighter clothes to school. It would hopefully give her the motivation to drop the weight. Little did he know, it would have the exact opposite effect. 


	2. Chapter 2

Once Shelby arrived at math class, Toni couldn’t take her eyes off of her. She had clearly gained weight, and not just a little, it looked like at least 30 pounds. Shelby had already been beautiful, but these extra pounds really accentuated her beauty, in Toni’s opinion. If Shelby had been a super model before, she was now a super super super model. For once, Toni really wanted to talk to Shelby, so she of course started with, “Wow, you look really good today,” which wasn’t creepy or weird at all. 

She could tell Shelby thought the same by the way that she said, “Thanks?” in the most confused way. To be fair, the outfit wasn’t flattering in any conventional way. Shelby’s stomach was pooching out over her jeans and her shirt was too small to cover it. They also rarely talked about anything but math, so Shelby’s confusion was well justified. 

“What I meant was that I like your shirt and that it uh… looks good on you.”

This time Shelby flushed and an angry look crossed her face, “Are you mocking me?”

Toni definitely was not, she honestly thought that Shelby looked really good today. She didn’t necessarily intend to say anything about it, it just kind of slipped out. But she wasn’t trying to mock her, just give her a compliment. She was going to say that, but Shelby continued in a harsh whisper, “I know that it’s way too small on me, but that gives you no right to mock me. I haven’t done anything to you!”

Toni held up her hands in a pleading way and said, “No! I’m serious, I actually think you look really good in that outfit. It’s like pretty and stuff.”

Shelby then looked at her like she was crazy and said, “Girl, I look fat,” as she gestured to her midriff. 

Toni looked down at her again. Her belly did look pretty big and her love handles definitely weren’t hidden, but Toni really didn’t think it was a bad look for her. If she was one of the beauty pageant judges, she knew who she’d be voting for. Saldy for Shelby, she wasn’t.

“Well I still think you still look good.”

This finally got a positive reaction from Shelby. She smiled and happily said, “Thanks.”

Then class started and Toni was actually able to follow along pretty well. Her tutoring sessions with Martha had been helping a lot and she was doing consistently better. On her last daily pop quiz, she’d been able to get all five questions correct. Martha had been so proud. Today she finished the quiz in a record breaking seven minutes. With how things had been going, she actually had a chance of getting an A on her next unit test, which would be great. If she had a good grade in math, her worst class, she wouldn’t have to worry about not being able to play on the basketball team. She was all set to make varsity this year, and she really didn’t want Geometry to mess it up for her. 

Soon the school day was over and Toni had tutoring with Martha after her preseason basketball conditioning. That only took about an hour, so she was able to walk to Martha’s by about four. Once she got there, she started ranting about her day, “Ok, so in Geometry, I accidentally told Shelby she looked hot while she was wearing a shirt that looked three sizes too small. Like, her stomach was hanging out the bottom of it, small. It was so embarrassing,” that was said as she threw herself onto Martha’s bed and buried her face in a pillow.

“Oof that sounds bad, and it sounds like she just became your type. What’d she say?”

“She was, of course, pretty confused but didn’t sound angry. Well, she was at first, but she seemed to believe me when I said I actually thought she was pretty and wasn’t just mocking her.”

“Did she seem interested?” Martha said teasingly.

Toni’s face flushed and she said, “I don’t think so. We didn’t talk that much and for most of it, I was looking like an idiot.”

“At least you didn’t say anything mean.”

“Yeah sure. Let’s get started on homework.”

They finished and Toni felt like she had a pretty good grip on it. She was pretty confident she’d do well on the test Friday. 

The rest of the week went by smoothly. She made some more small talk with Shelby, but without making a fool of herself, so that was a win. She understood the math lessons, sometimes without Martha’s help and Shelby continued to wear the too small clothes each day. They looked very uncomfortable and Toni really wanted to know why she kept wearing them, so she asked.

“Hey don’t mean to be rude,” Toni said as Shelby shifted and tried to readjust the waistband of her skirt, “but your clothes look a little uncomfortable.”

Shelby looked up and said, “Yeah… so?”

“Oh, uh I was just wondering why you keep wearing them?”

Shelby let out a sigh, leaned in and whispered, “Well my dad is trying to encourage me to lose weight and he thinks that embarrassing me by forcing me to wear clothes that are too small out in public will somehow do the trick,” she then gestured to her belly which was scrunched up into three tiny rolls and said, “it clearly isn’t working.”

Toni was shocked. That seemed like a weird and cruel thing to do to your daughter. Plus, she thought he was a conservative Christian, and it seemed like they always prefer when women dressed modestly. 

“That’s messed up. I’m sorry dude, that fucking sucks.”

“It’s not that bad,” Shelby said a little defensively, “he’s just looking out for me. He has my best intentions in mind.”   
To Toni, it still sounded plenty weird and very controlling. 

“Whatever man, it still seems like a weird thing to force your daughter to do. Like if I wanted my daughter to lose weight, I’d try to put her on a diet or sign her up for a gym, not force her to wear small and revealing clothing.”

Shelby looked like she was trying to come up with some excuse for why her dad’s behavior was actually normal and fine, but it seemed she was having trouble. She finally said, “It does seem just a bit weird.”

Toni figured that it was the best she was going to get so she shut up and admired her. She felt bad about Shelby being forced to wear those clothes, but they certainly didn’t look bad on her. Her shirt used to show off her slightly toned stomach, but now it left plenty of room for her stomach to pooch out. It was folded into three small rolls that looked very soft. Toni kind of wanted to touch them and see, but didn’t cause that would’ve been very weird. Her skirt was giving her thick love handles, which really made her look pudgy. Her thighs were spread out over her seat and hanging off the edges a little. Her boobs, not that Toni looked much (she was trying to be respectful), looked bigger than before, and when Shelby looked down, she had a small double chin. Toni thought she looked cute and for the first time, she hoped she might be gay. 

Shelby had turned out to be nicer than she originally assumed. Her dad was very homophobic, and Toni had honestly thought she would be the same. Luckily she was proven wrong. When Toni once mentioned one of her ex girlfriends, Shelby hadn’t reacted badly at all. She had just smiled and Toni had continued with her story. Just knowing that Shelby wasn’t homophobic made her like her seatmate a lot more. And then when she noticed that she had gained weight, she realized that she was starting to crush on Shelby. 

The teacher then started class and Toni was taken out of her thoughts. He started passing out the tests and Shelby whispered, “Good luck,” and Toni responded with, “You too.”

Toni got the test and peeked at the first question. She read it and realized that she actually knew how to do it. That turned out to be the theme for the rest of the test. She even finished early. She turned it in, feeling much more confident about a math test than she had in years. It made her wonder why she hadn’t signed up for tutoring earlier. That made her respect for her teacher grow even more; it seemed like he actually cared how his students did.

On Monday, she was actually excited to see how she did on her test. Normally, she knew she failed, or was at least close to it. But today, Toni actually had a good feeling about it. She got to class ten minutes early. Shelby was also there, but she didn’t look nearly as excited as Toni. In fact, it looked like she had recently been crying. 

Toni awkwardly approached and said, “Hey, you okay?”

Shelby sniffled a bit and tried to collect herself, “Oh yeah, um just a little tired.”

That was clearly bullshit, but Toni felt like prodding might not be the best decision. It’s not like they were very close. She didn't want to seem pushy. Just as she had decided not to be pushy, Shelby spoke up. 

“Okay, so it’s actually my dad. He won’t get off my back about my weight, and like I’m trying to lose it, but it’s just going slower than I’d hoped. Plus, I'm like hungry all the time now and it’s so much harder to get work done when hungry, so my grades are starting to slip, which just makes him angrier. It’s like a never ending cycle. And my clothes are still super uncomfortable, so I can hardly pay attention in class.”

Toni actually felt bad for her. Having Dave Goodkind as a father sounded like an absolutely terrible time. If someone put that much pressure on her, she didn’t know what she’d do. Luckily for her, no one seemed to expect anything from her, well except for Martha. And Martha’s family thought she could have a good future too, but they weren’t pushy about it, they just didn’t want to see her waste her talents. They knew her basketball career could go somewhere, if she only applied herself, so that’s what she did, and that’s why she wasn’t going to fail Geometry this year. It honestly felt like a better situation than Shelby’s.

“That sounds intense. I don’t know how I would handle it. All that pressure.”   
Shelby sighed and nodded, “It does get to be a bit much sometimes. But I know he has my best interests at heart.”

Toni highly doubted that. In fact, it sounded like he only had his best interests at heart. 

“I guess, though it seems like he’s not really helping. Like if your grades are going down, that’s not really good.”

“I know, but like he’s my father and I should listen to him.”   
That was said with a note of finality, so Toni decided to leave the topic alone. Instead, she decided to ask about the math test, “So how do you think you did on the test Friday.”   
Shelby groaned and said, “Bad, what about you?”   
“I think I did okayish. I felt like I did better than last time.”   
“Me too, but that’s not really saying much.”

Toni let out a laugh and let the conversation die off. She got out her phone until the teacher came in and started class. He passed out the tests and Toni quickly looked to see her score. She had gotten a 91/100. It was probably the best score she’d ever gotten on a math test. She looked over to ask what Shebly had gotten when she noticed the huge grin on her face. It made her look even prettier than usual. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but it was still long enough to reach her shoulders. Her arms looked a little chunky and her belly bulged out over her waistband, covering the button to her jeans completely. It was as she was staring at Shebly’s tummy that Shelby decided to speak up, “What’d you get?”   
“91, what about you?”

“62, which I know isn’t much, but I think it’s the first time I’ve actually passed a math test in years, which also seems like something I should be bragging about.”

Toni laughed and said, “No worries. I get it. Math is brutal. Thank God for tutoring.”

Shelby smiled and Toni knew that it was the right thing to say.

“I know right. I don’t know why none of my other teachers told me we could do that here. I probably could’ve gotten a C in Algebra last year.”

“I know. It’s almost like most of the other teachers don't even care half of the time.”

“Oh yeah, definitely. Mr. Carson is the best math teacher I’ve had by far.”

Mr. Carson then stood up and asked the class to quiet down. He started going over the test and Toni was able to take note of the one question she missed. Martha was gonna be so proud of her. 

As soon as she got back to Martha’s house, she told her the good news.

“That’s amazing Toni. I knew you could do it.”   
Toni just shrugged and said, “Plus, since I actually signed up for tutoring and improved for real, Mr. Carson gave me a worksheet that I can complete for 20 extra credit points.”

“That’s great. We can work on it tonight.”

They worked on it and Toni knew that it was going to be her best year in math so far.


	3. Chapter 3

Shelby, was also having more success than usual, though it wasn’t having quite as much as Toni, but she was still doing significantly better than she thought she should be doing. Amanda had seemed genuinely happy for her when she found out she got a 62 on her math test, if not a little confused as to why that made her so happy. Sadly the worksheet was more complicated than she thought it would be and she was struggling. Amanda was doing her best to help, but Shelby honestly wasn’t in the best mindset to be trying to learn Geometry. Her clothes were way too tight and she was starving. 

Ever since her dad started making her mom pack her low calorie lunches everyday, she’d been having a harder time focusing all day, especially during her tutoring sessions. Amanda was doing her best to help, but Shelby just couldn’t focus. She eventually called her out on it, “Shelby, what’s going on? You’ve been way more distracted recently, and it’s really not helping you.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve just been a little tired recently,” her stomach then growled loudly, “and I guess a little hungry.”

Amanda reached down and pulled out her bag of Kit Kats, “I’ve got some candy if you think it would help you focus.”

Shelby really wanted to say yes, but she knew her dad would disapprove. She really didn’t want to keep disappointing him. He always made her feel inferior and useless whenever she did something he didn’t like, and for obvious reasons, Shelby didn’t like feeling like that. 

“I really shouldn’t. I’m supposed to be on a diet.”

Amanda gave her a deadpan look and said, “What’s more important, your diet or passing Geometry?”

“Passing Geometry,” Shelby said as she reached into the bag and pulled out a Kit Kat. She didn’t really even have to think about it much. A little encouragement was all she needed to make Dave Goodkind’s “lessons” leave her mind. Plus, she was getting quite hungry.

“Ugh, thank you so much. I’ve been starving all day and it’s been sooo hard to focus.”

Amanda smiled at her and said, “Well, we should get started then. We really don’t want you falling behind in math.”

Shelby grimaced through her mouthful of Kit Kat, but nodded to continue. Amanda opened the textbook and tried to teach Shelby what she had missed in class that day. The only reason it worked was because whenever Shelby looked like she was getting distracted, Amanda would hand her a mini Kit Kat and give her a sharp reminder to focus. So Shelby was able to return home nice and full with an almost complete understanding of Geometry lesson 3.4.

Once she arrived home, she was given a pitiful portion of baked chicken with green beans. Dinner was an awkward affair, as it had been this past week. Shelby constantly felt under scrutiny from her dad. He never let off with the scathing comments about her weight. It was also the night of her first weigh in. Her dad wanted to track her progress each week. He had wanted her to lose five pounds this week, but she highly doubted that had happened. She really didn’t stick to her diet very well when she wasn’t at home. Becca had been sneaking her candy between classes.

Right as Shelby finished her chicken, her dad spoke up, “Shelby, I think it’s time we check your progress for this week.”

She obviously knew what he meant and stood up to go up to her room. He followed her up the stairs and she got on the scale. Shelby was scared to look, so she took a few seconds to center herself before looking down. Her stomach sank as she saw the number 177. She had somehow managed to gain one whole pound this week. Her dad was going to kill her.

“Don’t keep me waiting all day, how much do you weigh?”

Shelby gulped before she answered, “177.”

Dave Goodkind’s eyes lit up in anger and for a second it looked like he was going to hit her. He quickly pulled himself together though and said, “We’re starting a new exercise program tomorrow and you’ll be skipping breakfast from now on.”

Shelby quickly nodded and he left her room. That definitely could’ve gone better but it was too late now. Once she had realized she’d gained weight, she knew her dad would react like that, what shocked her was that she had gained weight. She knew she wasn’t going to have lost five pounds like her dad wanted, but she thought she would’ve lost two or three. It was a little concerning. She was under the impression that she could lose the weight she had gained any time she wanted, but she wasn’t so sure now.

She honestly thought she had been doing pretty well on her diet. She knew she cheated a bit each day, but not enough to thwart any attempt at weight loss. It honestly scared her a bit. She didn’t mind being a bit chubby now, but she didn’t want to stay that way forever. It just felt so good to let go and not constantly worry about a diet. And she thought she still looked absolutely hot. The extra weight mostly accentuated her curves, which made it easier to ignore her small jiggly belly. Her main issue with it was that her dad had an issue with it. Her friends didn’t care, and during the small amount of time she’d spent with Andrew this past week, he hadn’t seemed to care either. It was just her dad who was making a big deal about a little extra weight. She wished he’d just let it go, but she knew that wouldn’t happen, especially since she now had a workout she’d have to do with him in the morning.

The next morning, Shelby woke up at 5:30 when her dad came into her room and threw some workout clothes at her face and said, “Get up, we’re going on a run.”

He left and she quickly got dressed. The leggings were too tight and cut into her soft belly, even after they were forced down a bit. Her tank top was also too small, but it wasn’t as bad, it just left a little sliver of stomach exposed at the bottom. But her sports bra was tight. It even hurt a bit and would not be fun to run in. 

She walked down the stairs and saw her dad waiting for her in the kitchen. He looked impatient, so she hurried over to his side.

All he said before taking off at a light jog was, “We’ll do my usual three mile route.”

Shelby did her best to keep up and she did a pretty good job for the first mile. But by the end of it, she felt like she was dying and desperately needed a break. She was able to continue on for a bit longer before she eventually had to stop and call out to her dad who had remained a few feet in front of her the whole time.

“Dad, can we please stop for a minute? I need a small break.”

She was panting and in clear need of a break, but her dad barely even slowed down while he said, “No, we’re almost done. You can rest then.”

Shelby tried to keep up, but could only go for another quarter mile before she needed to stop. She didn’t even bother to ask her dad to stop this time. She was not going to give him the chance to say no this time. He noticed she wasn’t with him anymore a couple of seconds later. He turned around, marched back, grabbed Shelby by the arm, and started dragging her behind him.

“I said you could rest when we are done. At this rate, you’re going to be late to school and I know you don’t want that.”

By this point, Shelby was close to tears. His grip was very tight and it hurt. They were also still jogging pretty quickly. Not as fast as before, but still faster than what was comfortable. They continued like this for the rest of the run. When they got home, her dad left her in the entryway after telling her to take a shower and go to school. She did those two things without an argument. 

She arrived at school thirty minutes early and didn’t really know what to do. She eventually decided to go wait in the cafeteria until it was time to go to class. There weren’t very many people at school that early, but she did spot Toni sitting with some girl she didn’t recognize. Her and Toni made eye contact and she waved. Toni shyly waved back and the other girl got a big grin on her face. They appeared to talk for a few seconds before the girl she didn’t know waved for her to come over. She obviously did, as she didn’t really want to sit at an empty lunch table for thirty minutes. 

Shelby sat down and waited for one of the girls to say something. After a couple quiet seconds, Toni seemed to realize that she was the only one who knew both girls, so she spoke up, “Oh uh, hi Shelby. This is my friend Martha, and Martha this is Shelby. We sit by each other in math class.”

Martha smiled and said, “Nice to meet you.”

Shelby replied with, “Likewise,” and the table fell into silence again. Shelby quickly realized that she had never actually spent any time with Toni outside of class. She was normally really good in social situations, but she did not know what to talk about at all. Plus, she was starting to feel very hungry. Her dad had made her skip breakfast, even after she had gone on that three mile run with him. Her clothes were still uncomfortably tight, but even that reminder didn’t stop her from really wanting breakfast. 

Toni then broke the silence with, “So Shelby, what brings you to the cafeteria on this beautiful Tuesday morning?”

Shelby was snapped out of her thoughts and had to take a second to process what Toni said before she could respond with, “Oh nothing really. I just woke up early and wanted to get out of the house a little earlier than usual.”  
She didn’t want to admit to Toni and Martha that her dad had been so disappointed in her running performance that he had thrown her out of the house early and without breakfast. It was embarrassing. Thinking of her missed breakfast made her stomach growl loudly, which was also embarrassing, but did prompt Toni to ask, “Did you not have breakfast?”  
“Uh no, I actually forgot.”

“Well, they serve breakfast here. You could go get some, you sound a little hungry.”

Toni said that with a weird grin on her face, but Shelby ignored that. She also ignored how Martha had nudged Toni and rolled her eyes.   
Shelby blushed and said, “I don’t have any money with me.”  
Toni then jumped up and said, “I get free lunch and breakfast, I could go get you something.”

Before Shelby could respond, Toni was gone. Martha still had a weird grin on her face, but Shelby didn’t comment on it. Instead, they made small talk until Toni came back with a tray full of breakfast foods. There were poptarts, a cinnamon roll, an orange, a small container of Lucky Charms, and a carton of milk. She set the tray down in front of Shelby and said, “Bon Appetit.”

Shelby rolled her eyes, but thanked her. The food wasn’t very high quality, but it was filled with way more sugar than she was used to. It still tasted great though. And as she ate, she observed Toni and Martha. 

Toni was very beautiful. Her dark curly hair was pulled up into a ponytail and her tight jacket showed off her arm muscles. She looked very fit and Shelby knew that she worked out all the time. It was part of why she was such a good basketball player. Shelby stared at her for a little longer than what was necessary, but quickly shook herself out of it. She then looked at Martha who, on the other hand, was a little heavier, but at this point, probably weighed less than Shelby. Her dark hair fell down to her shoulders, and she was actually watching Shelby as well. She looked like she was sizing Shelby up and it made Shelby nervous. 

She finished her breakfast as the five minute warning bell rang. Toni then looked over at her and said, “Are you done?”  
Shelby nodded and Toni grabbed her tray. The three of them got up and Toni returned her tray. Martha went off to her English class and Toni and Shelby walked to Geometry together. As they walked, they talked about the upcoming basketball season. Tryouts had started this week and Toni was hoping to make varsity. She said she had been working hard and to show off the fact, she flexed her arm, showing off her hard earned muscles. Shelby was surprised by how much she enjoyed looking. Toni looked very strong and for some reason it made her flush. She really wanted to feel her muscles all of a sudden. She never felt that way about Andrew, and he was even more ripped than Toni. This scared her and she chose not to think about what that might mean. 

They arrived at class a couple seconds before the bell rang and turned their extra credit worksheets in. Toni had done hers last night with Marth, who Shelby found out was the other girl’s tutor. The then teacher quickly started class. Shelby was happy for the distraction and threw herself into trying to do the warmup. She turned it in thinking she had actually done pretty good. She had managed to finish all the problems and felt like she fully understood them. It made her feel good and she was able to keep this positive energy until she got home. 

Of course, as soon as she got home, her dad ruined it. He didn’t even have to do anything to make her feel bad. Just sitting in the same room as him as she ate her paltry dinner was enough to ruin her mood. Also, the subtle glares didn’t help. It felt like every time she opened her mouth to take a bite, her dad sent her a disappointed glare. Normally, when on her diets, she felt bad about eating, but never this bad. She now dreaded coming home and having to eat in front of her dad. He didn’t used to be, but she had never been this chubby before. 

As soon as she was done eating, she went upstairs as quickly as she could. She wanted to get away from her dad, plus she had plenty of homework to do. About halfway through said homework, she got a text from Amanda telling her that she was sick and wouldn’t be able to tutor her tomorrow. That caused Shelby to fall back on her bed with a loud groan. She had been doing better at math recently, but she knew it was because she had Amanda reteaching her what she didn’t understand and helping her do the problems. She could tell that her week was going to get so much worse. 


	4. Chapter 4

The next day, Shelby woke up feeling very sore. Her legs ached, and when she tried to get up, she fell back onto her bed. She was up super early again to work out with her dad, and she knew he would be angry if she was late today, so she forced herself out of bed and into her too small workout clothes. Today she just wore sweatpants and a sports bra, which left her whole stomach exposed. Her sweatpants were looser than her leggings, so it didn’t cut her stomach in half and her love handles looked smaller than usual, but her sports bra was way too tight and caused a small roll to appear under her boobs. Her back was also completely exposed, showing off her small back rolls. Her legs were stretching the seams of her sweatpants a little too much to be considered comfortable, but they didn’t feel dangerously tight like some of her pants did. She was just glad that they’d be staying inside for the workout today. She didn’t think she’d be able to handle another run so soon. 

Shelby walked down the stairs and saw her dad drinking a protein shake in the kitchen. He noticed her and said, “Glad you’re on time today. We’re going to do some squats and bench presses in the basement along with cardio breaks in between.”

Shelby paled a bit at that. Squats would kill her sore thighs. Even going down the stairs felt like too much for her legs, but she wasn’t going to argue with her dad, so she just said “Sounds good dad.”

They walked down to the basement, and her dad started getting the weight racks ready. He then led her through some stretches, which she struggled with. Her belly got in the way a bit when she did knee hugs and her thighs were too sore for her to be able to do the lunges well. From the looks he was giving her, Shelby could already tell that she had managed to disappoint her dad. For once though, he decided to pump her up instead of mild insults. 

“Ok Shelbs, we’re going to start with some body weights squats. Then, if you’re feeling it, we can move on to weighted squats,” he then patted her on the shoulder and said, “you’ve got this.”

Shelby smiled at the encouragement. Maybe he felt bad about how he treated her yesterday, or more likely, her mom convinced him that being nice to her would be more effective. Either way, it was nice to have her dad being nice to her again. 

She quickly started doing some squats, while trying to ignore the burning in her thighs. After five squats, she felt like quitting. After ten squats, she was sweating and cursing her dad out in her head for forcing her to do this. Luckily, she only had to do ten, so as soon as she finished, she collapsed on the ground.

Gasping for breath, Shelby said, “I’m sorry dad, I don’t think I can do anymore. My legs are super sore from yesterday's workout.”

Her dad looked a little surprised and muttered under his breath, “Wow, she’s more out of shape than I thought.”

It was clear Shelby wasn’t supposed to hear that (but she did), as he followed it up with a louder, “Ok, we can just do some arm and ab exercises today. I don’t want you hurting yourself.”

Shelby knew that was true. No matter how gung ho her dad was about her losing weight, it seemed he knew that if she hurt herself exercising, it would be that much harder for her to lose the weight by the time pageant season came around. 

He started her with some push ups and sit ups as he did his weight squats. The push ups and sit ups were hard for very different reasons. Her arms were too weak to hold her increased weight up for that long, much less push her up and down. She was only able to do about two or three half push ups before she needed a break. The sit ups were hard because her stomach would bunch up against her legs each time she tried to sit up. It made it so she couldn’t get all the way up each time. Plus, she had never really worked out her abs, so they weren’t that strong to begin with.

After that, her dad had her do bench presses, which she was actually pretty good at. She could tell she would be slightly sore tomorrow, but it wouldn’t be nearly as bad as her legs or abs. Her dad also seemed pretty satisfied with her workout today, which was always good for her. She did still end up leaving for school early today, but not because she was forced to; she left early hoping that she would see Toni in the cafeteria again.

Shelby walked into the cafeteria and immediately spotted Toni eating an apple at a table alone. She walked over and said, “Where’s Martha today?” as she set her stuff down.

Toni looked up in surprise and said, “She had some Physics homework to finish up, so she went to the library.”

“Oh, cool.”   
A beat passed and then Toni asked, “Why are you here so early again?”

Shelby was here because she was hoping Toni would get her breakfast again, but she didn’t want to say that out loud. Instead, she said, “I just didn’t feel like staying at home any longer.”

Toni laughed and said, “Well, did you at least have breakfast this time?”

“Uh, actually I forgot.”

“Do you want me to get you some? It’s never good for a girl to skip breakfast. Everyone says it’s the most important meal of the day or something.”

Shelby giggled and looked down. Toni was offering to get her breakfast and there was no way she was going to say no. Why would she, it was exactly what she’d been hoping for. 

“Really? Thanks so much. My dad’s been a bit crazy with my diet so he doesn’t want me eating school food, but I’m just so hungry.”

“That sucks man,” Toni said as she stood up, “I’ll make sure to get you something good.”

Toni was gone for a few minutes, but when she came back, she had a tray full of all sorts of good things. There were mini donuts, pop tarts, two cinnamon rolls, and a blueberry muffin. She also had another apple, but she had already started eating it, so Shelby assumed it wasn’t for her. Toni set it down in front of her with a flourish and Shelby started eating. They made small talk until the topic of Geometry class came up. 

“It’s pretty fucking hard, but having Martha tutor me has really helped this year.”   
“I know! My tutor, Amanda, has helped me so much. I was able to pass a math test because of her. But now she’s sick and probably won’t be able to help me for the rest of the week.”   
Toni then looked down and appeared to blush a bit before gathering her courage and saying, “Well, if you want, you could come study with Martha and me. Like I wouldn’t want you falling behind.”   
Shelby smiled and said, “Wait really? Cause like, I would actually like to do that. I really don’t want to fall behind, even more than I already have.”

“Of course dude. I just have to ask Martha, but I don’t think she’d have a problem with it.”

This was perfect. Shelby was so worried that she wasn’t gonna be able to learn anything for the rest of the week, but now she was going to get to learn Geometry and spend more time with Toni, who seemed genuinely nice. Plus, she wouldn't have to spend nearly as much time at home, which was never a bad thing. 

Toni then interrupted her thoughts with, “Ok, Martha said it was fine. We’re gonna have a session around 6:30 at Martha’s house. Can you give me your number so I can text you her address?”   
“Oh, of course,” Shelby said as she typed her number into Toni’s phone. Right as she did that, the warning bell rang and they started walking to class. Class was confusing as always, but today’s not understanding wasn’t just caused by Shelby’s complete lack of math skills. It was also caused by how distracted she was by Toni. 

Shelby had never really noticed just how beautiful Toni was. She had her hair down and her curls fell to about mid back. Her baggy sweatshirt hid her muscles, but Shelby knew they were there, and that was enough for her. She also noticed how Toni bit her lip when she was concentrating, which was way hotter than when Andrew did it (was she still dating Andrew? She honestly wasn’t sure). Shelby’s favorite thing though, was when Toni would catch her looking. She would get the cutest blush and look away quickly. All these things about Toni made Shelby have a hard time concentrating, but also caused her to look forward to their tutoring session even more. 


	5. Chapter 5

Martha picked Toni up from basketball tryouts at 6:00 and Toni was full of nervous energy. She was way more nervous for her and Shelby’s tutoring session than she thought she should be. Like sure, Shelby was pretty and funny and way nicer than she thought she’d be, but that didn’t mean Toni should be this nervous. Martha was going to be there and it was a tutoring session. They weren’t even hanging out or anything like that. It was purely for school. But Shelby had looked so hot today. Her jeans were way too tight on her and made her ass look great. Sure, her stomach muffined over the edge, and her love handles looked pretty big, but that wasn’t really a bad thing in Toni’s eyes. Toni honestly thought Shelby looked good like that and was starting to hate her father for forcing her to go on a diet. With the way Shelby ate the food Toni had got her for breakfast, it was clear that she didn't want to be on that diet. She had never even met Shelby’s dad and she already hated him. 

“What’s on your mind?” Marth said, breaking Toni out of her thoughts, “you haven’t said anything since you got in the car and you look like you’re contemplating murder.”

“Sorry, I was just thinking about Shelby. It’s no big deal.”   
Toni then looked over and saw that Martha looked shocked. Martha then said, “I thought you liked Shelby. Heck, you even invited her to study with us.”

“No, I wasn’t just thinking about Shelby. I was thinking about her dad too. He’s forcing her to be on this diet that she clearly doesn’t want to be on.”   
A sympathetic look crossed Martha’s face and she said, “Oh poor girl, no one deserves that.”

“I know. Plus, well, I’m sure you’ve noticed how she wears really tight clothes,” Toni paused and Martha nodded her so she continued, “well, it’s because her dad won’t let her buy new clothes or wear any of the looser ones she already owns. He’s trying to embarrass her into losing weight. Like that’s absolutely insane right?”

Martha now looked horrified, which was exactly how Toni was feeling. In fact, talking about it had just made Toni angrier than before. No one deserved to be treated like that, especially someone as nice as Shelby. Martha seemed to agree as she said, “When Shelby gets here, I’m gonna lend her some loose sweatpants and we can make her mac and cheese.”

They pulled up to Martha’s driveway and Toni said, “I’ll start cooking, we should try to have it ready for when she gets here,” she checked her phone and saw that it was 6:15, “she should be here in fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll go find some of my old sweats.”

Toni started cooking, and fifteen minutes later, she had made two boxes of Kraft mac and cheese. It was perfect timing as right as she finished mixing the powdered cheese in, the doorbell rang. Toni yelled, “I’ll get it,” and went to answer the door. Shelby was wearing a different outfit than what she had worn to school. It looked a little more comfortable, but not by much. Her leggings were still digging into her stomach, and clearly caused a large muffin top, even if now it was covered by what clearly used to be an oversized T-shirt. It now only looked a little small on her. Toni thought she looked gorgeous. 

Shelby then smiled at her and said, “Uh… can I come in?”   
Toni opened the door wider and stepped out of the way.

“Oh, of course,” she chuckled awkwardly and said, “glad you could come.”

Toni watched Shelby look around the room and they stood in silence. She could hear Martha rummaging through her closet upstairs. She quickly realized that she should say something to start a conversation, so she said, “Oh, I made mac and cheese so like if you want some, you can have some.”

“I totally would have some, but I already ate dinner,” Shelby said with a small frown on her face. 

Toni could tell she wanted some. This was mainly because right after she said that, her stomach growled loudly. She then blushed and said, “On second thought, I’d actually like some. Dinner really wasn’t very filling.”

Toni grabbed her a bowl and filled it to the brim with mac and cheese. She handed it to Shelby and got herself one, but only filled it halfway up. Shelby gave her a weird look and it seemed like she was about to ask why their portions were so different, but Martha chose that moment to come down the stairs with a pair of her sweatpants. 

“Hey Shelby, glad you could make it.”   
Shelby set down her spoonful of mac and cheese and said, “Thanks for letting me join so last minute.”

“It’s really no problem, I was already doing this with Toni, so it’s not like I actually had to change my schedule,” Martha paused for a beat and held up the sweatpants, “also, I have these to change into if you want. They might be a little more comfortable than what you have on.” 

Shelby blushed and put a hand to the waistband of her leggings, seeming to gauge just how tight they would look to other people. The look on her face, seemed to say that others would definitely be able to tell how poorly fitting her clothes were. Toni wanted to facepalm or maybe slap Martha. Martha was not very subtle, and the last thing she wanted was for Shelby to feel self conscious about her weight gain. Especially considering that she didn’t look bad, she was just forced to wear ill fitting clothes. She had enough people harassing her about her weight, just going off of the stories Toni had heard about her dad.

Shelby seemed to collect herself. She stood up and took the sweatpants from Martha while saying, “Yeah, that’d be great. I think I must’ve grabbed some of my old leggings… the ones from junior high that are like... a size too small.”   
It wasn’t a very convincing lie, but Toni rolled with it, “Oh yeah I hate when that happens,” was said in Toni’s serious voice. It might have seemed a little out of place, but Shelby mostly just looked grateful that people weren’t gonna call her out on her obvious weight gain. 

Shelby went to the bathroom to change and Toni turned to whisper yell at Martha as soon as she heard the bathroom door close.

“Seriously man, you couldn’t have at least tried to be subtle.”

Martha looked ashamed and said, “I wasn’t trying to be rude, but like is there really a good way to offer someone sweatpants… like what was I supposed to do?”   
That made Toni pause. She tried to come up with something, but she really couldn’t. 

“I guess that’s fair enough. I don’t really know what I would’ve said either. And it really didn’t go that badly.”

They then heard the bathroom door open, so they quickly stopped talking, and Martha started filling up her bowl. The sweatpants fit Shelby much better than any of her other clothes. They even looked like they would be comfortable. The three of them ate all the mac and cheese. Shelby even had a second heaping bowl, saying that dinner was more of a snack than a full meal. No one called her out on her constantly changing story. 

Martha then led them up to her room where they were going to be studying. There was a desk with notes and textbooks strewn across the surface and a chair for that desk, but there weren’t any others. 

Martha then pointed to the bed and said, “You two can sit there; sorry I don’t have anything better.”

The last comment was mostly directed at Shelby and she promptly responded, “Oh no problem,” as she sat down on the edge of the bed. She looked kind of awkward, especially compared to Toni, who had thrown herself on the bed and stretched out, taking up as much space as she could.

Martha started the tutoring session with a mini lesson of what they’d done in class that day. Toni had understood it, but Shelby clearly hadn’t so she wasn’t going to complain. Martha finished it in about ten minutes, and the one part about the pythagorean theorem that Toni hadn’t understood had been cleared up. Shelby on the other hand looked just as confused as before, if not a little more. She asked for help and Martha tried to explain it for her again, but it just wasn’t working.

Martha then looked like she had an idea and said, “So this clearly isn’t working for you. Toni could you try to explain it to her? Sometimes having a different teacher is helpful.”

Toni looked up from her homework and said, “Oh, of course.”

“Cool, I’m gonna go downstairs and get some water. I’ll be right back.”

Martha walked out of the room and Toni and Shelby were alone together. Toni then leaned over Shelby’s shoulder to look at the problem she was working on. Her hand accidentally brushed Shelby’s side and she could feel how soft it was. She blushed bright red, but luckily Shelby couldn’t see her. If she could, she would wonder if Toni was feeling alright.

“So what don’t you understand?”

Shelby sighed and said, “All of it,” in a very frustrated voice.

Toni then started to explain it to her. Toni explained it to her in a slightly different way than Martha, but it was apparently enough because Shelby’s face cleared and she went, “Ohhh, c is squared too. I think I get it now.”

Toni smiled and said, “I’m glad I could help.”

They then went back to doing their homework, or at least tried to. Toni was having a hard time concentrating. Shelby looked much happier now that she knew what the hell they were doing in Geometry. She didn’t look super thrilled, which made sense cause she was doing math homework, but she did have a proud look on her face. The kind people get when they finally figure something out they thought they’d never figure out. It gave Toni butterflies and a weird proud feeling in her stomach.

Martha eventually came back, and they wrapped up the tutoring session. Shelby had to be home at 8:30 because it was a school night, but Toni decided to stay the night again. Her current foster parents weren’t bad, but they weren’t around a lot, so they probably wouldn’t notice that Toni didn’t come home that night. The two of them stayed up late talking, like they usually did when Toni slept over (it was the main reason she didn’t do it all the time).

“So… you totally have a crush on Shelby right.”

Toni threw a pillow at Martha’s head, but she caught it and threw it back. Toni then threw it back, but this time Martha didn’t throw it back.

“You’re not getting out of this by throwing things at me, so answer the question.”

Toni glared at her but answered the question, “I think so. She’s just so pretty and a lot nicer than I thought she’d be. And she’s really funny. The stuff she mumbles under her breath in Geometry is fucking hilarious.”

Martha gave her a sly grin and Toni wanted to hit her with a pillow, but Martha had them all, so she had to stick with flipping her off.

“But it doesn’t matter cause she’s not gay,” Toni said with a sigh of disappointment, “so I just need to get over it.”

Martha then smirked and said, “I’m not so sure of that. She kept glancing at you when you weren’t looking. And when she noticed me noticing, she blushed and looked back down at her homework. I’m not sure, but she looked pretty interested.” She paused for a beat then said, “Ooo, you should try to find out if she’s gay or bi or something. Like ask her about things only gay people like.”

Toni gave her a deadpan stare and said, “And what would those things be?”   
“I don’t know! I’m not gay.”

“Well, that’s a bad idea.”

“I don’t hear you coming up with anything better.”

Toni then sat in thought. After a few seconds she said, “Well, I could ask her to hang out and just see what happens, but like just as friends.”

Martha deflated a bit at the friends part, but seemed happy enough with the outcome of their talk. They went to bed and Toni spent hours thinking about how she would ask Shelby to hang out without it being awkward or weird. They’d never really talked outside of school, but tonight’s tutoring session had gone well enough that she thought Shelby might say yes. 

Toni woke up the next morning filled with nervous energy. It was only 6:00, but she knew there was no way she was falling asleep again. She snuck out of Martha’s room to go for a jog. She hoped it would calm her down in time for school. Exercise always helped. 

Sadly, today it didn’t. In fact, it kind of made things worse. She forgot her earbuds, so she was alone with her thoughts, and her thoughts inevitably led her to Shelby. She came back to Martha’s house at 6:45 even more nervous than she’d left. She’d managed to convince herself that asking Shelbyl to hang out would lead to a humiliating rejection and ridicule from all her classmates. Of course, she knew Shelby was way too nice to publicly embarrass her, but her mind still went there. Luckily for Toni, when she got back, Martha was up and was able to talk some sense into her. 

Martha drove her to school and left her alone at a lunch table. She didn’t really want to leave Toni, as she thought she’d chicken out, but Toni convinced her it’d be better that way. Plus, it would look a little weird if Toni was making plans with Shelby in front of Martha, but was excluding her. Toni got to the cafeteria and grabbed a large breakfast. She wanted to have it ready for when Shelby arrived. She had to sit at the table for about ten minutes before she saw Shelby walk in through the door. 

Shelby looked great as usual. Her hair was down and straight as usual and her clothes looked very tight. Her tummy was spilling over her waistband and her shirt couldn’t quite be pulled down all the way. Her thighs looked crammed into her jeans, and the button was clearly straining; it looked like it could burst off at any moment. Toni thought she looked hot, but no matter how good her clothes looked on her, Toni couldn’t get over the fact that her father forced her to wear them. In Toni’s opinion, he was completely insane and really needed to be stopped. Shelby deserved better. Her dad was also clearly pushing her too hard in her workouts as she also looked completely exhausted. 

Shelby walked over and plopped down next to Toni, “Ugh, I’m so tired and so hungry. My dad wouldn’t let me have breakfast and made me go on another run today. It was terrible!”

Toni gave her a sympathetic look and slid her the tray, “I figured this would happen, so I already got you this.”

The tray was filled with the usual cinnamon rolls and poptarts. It really wasn’t what someone should be eating after a workout, but it was all the school really had. Well, except for the apple that Toni had already eaten. 

“Thank you so much! You’re literally the best.”

As Shelby started eating her breakfast, Toni sat in silence and gathered her courage. She was going to ask Shelby to hang out. Well, kind of. She’d decided that she would ask her to do math homework with her tonight. It was kind of a cop out, but it was the best she could come up with. 

As Shelby was finishing her breakfast, Toni finally spoke up, “So, is Amanda back yet?”   
“No, she’s still sick.”

“Well, I was wondering if you like maybe wanted to work on homework together tonight. Martha is busy and can’t tutor me tonight and I figured it’d be better to do it together than struggle through it alone.”

Shelby smiled and said, “That'd be great,” she then frowned a bit, “but I don’t know how helpful I will be. I never really understand what’s going on until someone explains it to me.”

Toni was thrilled. Shelby said yes. Even if it was just a study hang out, they would be spending time one on one, which was more than she dared hope for before.

“Don’t worry. I’ve been able to understand this unit pretty well. I’ll try and help you. So come to my house around 6:30 again. I’ll text you my address.”

“Yeah, that works for me.”

They then packed up and went to class. Toni felt very pleased and determined to focus in math. If she didn’t know what was going on, Shelby probably wouldn’t want to do this ever again, and Toni was aiming to fill the spot as her tutor until Amanada got back.


	6. Chapter 6

Shelby was thrilled that Toni had asked her to come over and study. Her dad had been terrible to her that morning and any excuse to stay out of the house was a welcome one. Hopefully Toni would serve her dinner again. The meals at her house were less than filling, and she knew she was supposed to diet to lose weight, but she really didn’t want to. Sure, she often felt self conscious about her body, especially now with how her dad would mock her, but it wasn’t enough to make her want to diet. Eating grilled chicken everyday (it’s what she had that night too) got old very fast. Plus, Becca said she still looked great and promised to tell her if she ever started to get fat. 

At a little before 6:30, Shelby drove to Toni’s house. She didn’t exactly tell her dad where she was going or who she was going to be seeing. She didn’t want to risk him knowing that Toni wasn’t straight and stopping her from going. If she didn’t get tutoring, she knew she would likely fail. And she was starting to like Toni, a lot. She was really beautiful and a lot nicer than she looked. All she’d heard about Toni was that she was a great basketball player with anger issues. Apparently she’d gotten suspended for breaking a girl’s nose on the court. This rumor had originally made Shelby scared to talk to her (she had heard that Toni had done it on purpose), but the more she got to know Toni, the less likely the rumors seemed to be true. It seemed more likely that it had been an accident. 

These thoughts ended as Shelby pulled into Toni’s driveway. The house seemed pretty nice, but she wouldn’t know for sure until she went in. She knocked on the door and Toni answered immediately, almost as if she’d been waiting right there. Toni just stood there for a moment and seemed to check her out, which made Shelby blush a bit. She had tried to dress up for this study session more than the last one, so she was wearing her loosest jeans (which were still very tight) and a nice sweater, that was just a little too short, leaving part of her midriff bare. She thought she looked as good as she was going to considering she really only had clothes that are too small. The fact that she had to clear her throat to get Toni’s attention and then how Toni stumbled over her words while inviting her in, made Shelby very pleased. She loved being able to get that reaction out of Toni.

It felt good to still have Toni look at her like that. Whenever Andrew did, Shelby always felt a little sick though. Luckily, he seemed to be doing it less and less lately, while Toni was doing it more and more. It was something she had been thinking about more and more lately. 

She had always noticed girls around her, a lot more than she’d noticed any boys. They’d always been so pretty and way nicer than the boys. And the one time she kissed a girl (it was at a sleepover while playing truth or dare), it had felt way better than anytime she’d kissed Andrew. Now she felt herself fantasizing about kissing Toni, well it happened once, and she immediately panicked and shut that train of thought down. But it still happened and was on the back of her mind whenever she was around Toni, and it would climb closer every time Toni did something nice fore her, like get her breakfast or offer to study with her. It was now at the front of her mind as she walked into Toni’s house.

“I made mac and cheese and chicken nuggets, if you want some?” Toni said as she finally snapped out of her trance. 

Shelby smiled and said, “Yeah, that’d be great, thanks.”

Shelby was a lot more excited on the inside than she showed on the outside. She was kind of sick of chicken, but chicken nuggets were very different from the near flavorless baked chicken her mom made. 

She followed Toni into the kitchen and Toni served her a heaping plate of mac and cheese with like twelve chicken nuggets. It was a ton of food and for once, she decided to question it, “Don’t you think this is too much food?”

Toni got a panicked look on her face, let out a nervous laugh and said, “Well, maybe a bit, but I didn’t know if your dad let you eat dinner…”

She trailed off at the end and Shelby could tell that she was trying to come up with a better explanation. She took pity on her and said, “I guess that’s fair, he sometimes doesn’t let me have dinner, but since we worked out today, he let me have some.”

Toni smiled a relieved smile and reached to take away her plate, but Shebly stopped her and awkwardly said, “Well, he didn’t let me have much, so I am still kinda hungry.”

That caused Toni to smirk and say, “So you were just messing with me?”

Shelby blushed a bit and nodded. That seemed to be enough for Toni, and they started eating their dinner, well for Shelby, her second dinner. Toni finished her much smaller portion and Shelby decided that she had had enough after eating about half of her plate. She pushed her plate away and was about to get up when Toni said, “Oh come on, I know you can eat more than that.”

Shelby blushed and noticed just how tight her jeans had gotten. They were cutting into her stomach quite badly and felt as if they were about to burst off. There was a pretty large roll of pudge hanging over her waistband and her sweater just barely covered it. This all should’ve made her want to not eat for the next week, but instead, Shelby discreetly unbuttoned her jeans and said, “Well, I guess I can finish it. I am still a little hungry.”

She pulled her plate back towards her and continued eating while Toni watched her with a strange expression on her face. Shelby finished her food and felt like she couldn’t eat another bite. Today was not a good day for her weight loss program. She felt a moment of guilt, but Toni quickly snapped her out of it by saying, “Do you want ice cream? I’ve got some chocolate ice cream in the fridge.”

The thought of eating anymore made Shelby feel sick. She put her hand to her stomach to feel how full she was and when she pressed down, she could hardly feel her belly fat at all. She felt completely stuffed and looked it to. It made her wonder why exactly Toni kept asking if she wanted more food. She had clearly had more than a little too much. She waved Toni off and said, “I’m good thanks. I’ve had way too much already and if I ate anymore, I would burst.”

Toni chuckled and said, “Then let’s go up to my room to study,” as she helped Shelby up from her seat. 

Shelby grunted as she stood up and reached down to pull up her pants. They had fallen down because they were still unbuttoned. She then realized that they were still unbuttoned and that Toni could see that they were unbuttoned. She looked at Toni to see if she noticed and she clearly had. Toni was blushing hard and couldn’t seem to look away from her stomach. This of course led to Shelby blushing just as hard, sucking her stomach in as much as she could and pulling her sweater down to cover her waistband and overflowing stomach.

As she did that, Toni snapped back to reality and said, “Uh… I’ve got some sweatpants if you want something more comfortable.”

“That’d be great actually.”

Toni then ran upstairs, returning a minute later with the sweatpants, “There’s a bathroom down the hall, second door on the left.”

Shelby hurried to the bathroom and as soon as she closed and locked the door, released her stomach. It popped out from underneath her sweater and parted her jean zipper a few more centimeters. She looked in the mirror, admiring just how fat she’d gotten. It was clear her diet wasn’t working. She probably hadn’t gained much weight as she had been, if any she’d gained any at all, but she clearly hadn’t lost any either. Her jeans, even while unbuttoned were giving her love handles. Her thighs and butt were crammed into them and they were pretty difficult to take off. Her sweater wasn’t much better. It was supposed to be loose and baggy, but it was pretty form fitting. It didn’t show off much skin, but it flattered her larger boobs and when she raised her arms, most of her stomach was revealed to anyone looking.

Shelby then put on Toni’s sweatpants. They were too small on her, but they were much more forgiving than her jeans. She checked the size on them and saw they were a large. Toni didn’t look like a large, maybe they were Martha’s. They seemed pretty close, so it would make sense that she had left some clothes there. Thinking about this made her realize that a size large sweatpants were too small for her. No wonder her dad kept getting on her about her weight gain, she was actually getting pretty fat. And the giant mac and cheese dinner she’d just had definitely didn’t make anything better.

Shelby then left Toni’s bathroom feeling worse about herself than she had in a while (well since this morning when her dad was heckling her, but it was the first time she’d felt this bad without his insults). She finally reached Toni’s room and sat down on the other girl’s bed. The room had several basketball posters and a desk on one side where Toni was sitting. There was also the bed, which Shelby was sitting on.

“Dang what took you so long?”

What took so long was that Shelby had outgrown all her clothes and even the large sweatpants Toni lent her. She wasn’t going to say that though, in fact what she was going to say was nothing, because instead, Shelby started crying quietly. Toni looked panicked and said, “Oh sorry, I didn’t mean anything by that. You didn’t take very long at all.”

Toni then awkwardly reached over and started patting Shelby’s back. Shelby gave her a funny look and she slowly withdrew her hand.

“Sorry, it’s not you, in fact it’s nothing serious.”

“Well, I’m here if you want to talk about it… or we can watch tv or study if you want a distraction.”

Shelby looked like she wasn’t gonna answer, but she eventually said, “It’s nothing really… but, you know how my dad’s been getting me to lose weight, well, I don’t think it’s working very well.”

Toni then looked her up and down and said in a hesitant voice, “It also doesn’t look like you’ve gained any weight.”

Shelby gave her a deadpan stare and Toni quickly elaborated, “Well, you haven’t gained more since you started your diet.”

Shelby sighed and said, “I guess, but “I’m still frickin fat.”

Toni held up her hands defensively, looking like she was trying to wave Shelby’s concerns away, “No, you’re not fat! You’re just curvy. It’s good when girls have curves, and that’s what you have.”

Shelby was pretty sure she was being lied to. When she had been checking herself out in the mirror earlier, she knew she looked fat. Especially when compared to someone who was as thin and muscular as Toni. Toni clearly worked out and took good care of her body. She also ate much less than Shelby. Toni looked like a girl that would have abs.

“That’s coming from a girl who looks like an Amazon, you probably even have abs.”

Toni blushed and said, “Uh, thanks, but that’s not true. I don’t look like an Amazon and I don’t have abs.”   
“Then prove it.”

Shelby had said that without thinking and it caught her off guard. It also seemed to catch Toni off guard, but she lifted her shirt up, showing off a faint four pack to Shelby. Shelby blushed bright red. Toni was even hotter than she thought. Even at Shelby’s skinniest, she’d never actually had abs, and those abs looked great on Toni.

Shelby realized she’d been staring too long when Toni lowered her shirt and said, “See, I don’t really have abs. I even have a little bit of pudge.”

Toni raised her shirt back up and pinched the tiniest bit of pudge Shelby had ever seen someone try to pinch. She doubted it even counted as actual body fat. 

“Seriously, you think that counts as fat,” Shelby said as she raised up her shirt. Her bloated potbelly fell out of her sweater and bounced a bit, causing the waistband of her sweatpants to fold over. She grabbed a handful of belly fat and shook it saying, “This is actual fat.”

Shelby waited for a reaction, but Toni seemed mesmerized, which in itself was a reaction. It took a moment, but Toni finally snapped out of it and said, “You’re really pretty.”

That caught Shelby off guard. Normally when anyone saw her bloated tummy, they looked disappointed or told her to lose weight. This was a welcome surprise.

“You think so, even with all of this?” Shelby said as she shook her stomach fat again. 

It continued to jiggle for a few seconds after and Toni, once again, kept staring, weirding Shelby out a bit. It again took Toni a while to gather her thoughts and speak, “Oh yeah, you look great like this… like a supermodel or something.”

That really confused Shelby. People had said stuff like that to her before she gained a bunch of weight, when she was winning all her pageants, but it happened a lot less since she’d gained so much weight. It had been a blow to her confidence, but with Becca, and now Toni, saying that she still looked beautiful, she was starting to feel better about herself. Having Toni say this stuff, had even a bigger impact than when Becca said the same or her dad insulted her. 

Toni then shook her out of her thoughts by saying, “Uh, yeah… so do you wanna do homework now?” as she rubbed the back of her neck.

Shelby quickly realized that she had never responded to Toni’s comments and said, “Thanks, and yeah, we should probably get started.”

The two girls then did their best to do math homework, and the reason they didn’t do too well was for once, not because they didn’t know what was going on, but because they kept distracting each other. Toni would make a funny face or comment and it would send Shelby into volleys of laughter. Then Toni would get distracted by Shelby brushing her hair behind her ear and giving her a small smile. It turned out Martha was the buffer they needed to stay on task; Shelby ended up leaving at 8:30, only having completed about half of her homework and an agreement to meet tomorrow to do it all again. 


End file.
